The Young Adult Dystopia of Divergent

In the wake of The Hunger Games, dystopia is the hot new thing in Young Adult novels. At least we’re not suffering through pseudo vampires anymore, right? Divergent is the latest YA novel that’s become popular in the wake of The Hunger Games, and the movie version is coming on March 20, 2014 with Shailene Woodley.

Divergent was written by Veronica Roth, and she told Vulture, “The Hunger Games was just becoming a thing when I finished writing it.” Roth added that the virtues of the story, being yourself even if you’re looked down upon for being different,” are the ones I believe in.”

Roth sold the book when she was pretty young herself, 21 years old, and she’s now 25. Like Hunger Games, this is a trio of stories, the sequel being Insurgent, and the last chapter, Allegiant, coming on the 22nd of October.

The movie rights for Divergent were sold before the book was even in stores, and as a publicist for the books told Vulture, “We really limited the number of advance reader copies. We selected 50 bloggers to participate in a preorder campaign, we separated them into factions, and we had them compete against each other and post different content.”

There’s also going to be a tight lid on Allegiant, with no advance copies going out before publication. Allegiant has supposedly received the biggest number of preorders in HarperCollins history.

If only being a best-selling author could be so easy for all of us. With Divergent, Roth was definitely in the right place at the right time, and who knows what the next trend in young adult could be? Again, as long as we’re not dealing with teen vampires, it’s fine.